The iPhone SE: Unlocking your new (small) iPhone’s (big) potential

If you wanted a powerful smartphone with a smaller screen — Apple granted your wishes with their latest product debut, the iPhone SE. Here’s a quick how-to guide for unlocking your new phone’s potential. What’s that saying? Big things can come in small packages? Yep.

How to use Night Shift

Research shows that the blue and white glow from smartphone screens can hinder our sleep patterns when using our phones in bed. Apple created a Night Shift feature for this, and it is available on the iPhone SE. The mode limits the amount of blue light your display gives off, thus protecting your sleepy eyeballs at night. Tap Settings > Display & Brightness > Night Shift, and set a schedule or allow your iPhone to work it out by selecting Sunset to Sunrise. Zzzzzz.

How to use Wi-Fi calling

With Wi-Fi calling, your iPhone SE can sense when you have no strong cellular signal for calls, and allow you to make a call over your Wi-Fi network instead. It’s not currently supported by every carrier, but try going to Settings > Phone > Wi-Fi Calling and toggle Wi-Fi Calling on This Phone to on to check. You should see “Wi-Fi” after your carrier name in the status bar if you’re eligible.

Using Siri hands-free

You can activate Siri on your iPhone SE without even picking up your device. If you tap Settings > General > Siri, and toggle Allow ‘Hey Siri’ on, you’ve enabled hands-free. You’ll need to say, ‘Hey Siri’ three times, so your iPhone knows what you sound like. Now, it will listen for your commands, and you can say, ‘Hey Siri’ at any time to get some help. Fancy!

How to use Live Photos

The iPhone SE has an excellent 12-megapixel camera, and supports for the new Live Photos feature (which we also discussed in this post), debuted on the iPhone 6S. The feature captures a super-short video, with a second or two on either side of your shot. To enable, tap the three circles icon in the Camera app. Remember, Live Photos also record audio, so be careful what you say!